1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for sharing of email content online and, more particularly, to an electronic mail (email) server configured for automatically copying content from an email directed to a pre-determined email address, and subsequently to a web page.
2. Description of the Background
Sharing digital content is important for any individual, group, or organization, including family, friends and business. The internet has provided a platform for communicating and sharing digital content online. For example, the original online communication technique was electronic mail or “email.” Originally an ASCII text-only communications technique, internet email was extended by Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) to carry other digital content attachments. This allowed users to serially distribute a document between themselves by attaching, the document to an email message. User A would create document version 1.0 and email it to user B, who creates version 1.1 and emails it to user C, and so on. The limitations of this approach are apparent, and solution providers have attempted to streamline the process. A variety of content publishing/sharing websites exist today. All facilitate some aspect of publishing/sharing content among remote users in diverse geographical locations. Most are targeted to a particular use and/or allow publishing/sharing digital content on specific types of electronic files, e.g., word processing documents, calendars, spreadsheets, databases, multimedia presentations, audio and video content, computer-program code, etc. For example, Microsoft's OneNote® application facilitates a shared note-taking session between users using a shared session application program interface (API). OneNote® lets users create simple or complex notes from scratch, organize them into searchable, browse-able notebooks, and sync diem among a variety of platforms. OneNote® is great for note taking but is relatively poor at clipping existing content and sharing it.
OneNote's main competitor Evernote™ assigns users an email address such as [username].12345@m.evernote.com. Users can clip most anything and email it directly into their Evernote™ workspace. Emails sent to that address are then converted into an Evernote “Note.” The subject line of the email is used for titling the note in accordance with a ruleset, e.g., use “Trip to Florida” followed by an @ symbol followed by the name of a destination notebook creates a note titled Trip to Florida in that notebook.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 8,312,381 to Shutterfly, Inc. shows a system for posting content to a web site. In this instance, every user is assigned a unique email address to post their email content (e.g. SeanFenlon123@Shutterfly.com). When they clip and email content to that address the server(s) automatically extract content from the email and post the content to a web address at http://SeanFenlon123.Shutterfly.com. There are several drawbacks to this approach that limit its value as sharing solution. For one, all users need to be pre-registered with a Shutterfly account in order to receive the unique email address allowing them to post their email content. This is a problem because most software vendors are expected to provide free demonstration programs of their applications, and most users have come to expect a free “try-before-you-buy” demo of at least some of the functionality of the full software program in order to provide the customer with a feel for the functionality of the program.
Secondly, myriad email addresses must be specially set up for content submissions, and each of these email addresses is associated with a destination at a website. An email address can specify a website, a webpage or a section of a webpage at a website, or an image already displayed on a webpage at the website. Thus, users must be aware of many different email addresses, and the email addresses must themselves literally correspond to the webpage locations (or a cross-reference must exist).
Third, a complex software interpreter is required to monitor incoming emails at the email server and decide what to do with content submissions. For example, when an email is addressed to mysprotsteam.picture@nexo.com, the interpreter knows to extract image(s) attached or embedded in the email and post them to a pictures page at the website www.mysprotsteam.com. Any inline text in the email is automatically extracted from the email message and used to caption the pictures.
All of the foregoing detract from the utility in a true social sharing context and render the Shutterfly® system unsuitable for ad hoc social sharing of any content by email. What is needed is a system for posting content to a web site that requires no pre-registration, uses a single email address for all users, and which identically replicates an incoming email as a web page mirroring its content. This would allow any email user to post any content to a public website anytime ad hoc.
The present solution is easy to use, enables real-time publishing and sharing of digital content by multiple users, and facilitates, rather than constrains, the content publishing/sharing process.